Caffeinated
by DollyPop12
Summary: She should have known he'd wait to grade exams until the very last minute.


She had spent the entire day with Azusa, intent on giving Stein some time alone to finish (start) grading the papers from the Super Written Exam, but she should have known. The first clue was when she stepped in after it was already dark and found that none of the lights were on and that there was a small pyramid of empty cans on the table she kept between their couches. They lined the windowsill, too.

She had a fear that if she smelled the watering can in the shape of an elephant, all she'd come back with would be the sugary scent of energy drink.

She should have known.

She thinks she did, or a piece of her must have felt the premonition of what she was going to walk into, because her feet immediately swiveled, making a direct line to a Bunsen burner with the goal of making some coffee. Yet, she stopped when she saw another empty can of Monster next to the cleaned-out coffee tin.

She bought that yesterday. After they mysteriously went through three in the past four days.

Alright, then. That plan was out, it seemed. When she made her way to where her glutton-for-punishment boyfriend was slumped over his desk, a massive stack of papers in front of him, she found Stein staring at his hands as though they were rendered in Technicolor. She blinked at him as he turned them over, first staring at his palms, seemingly memorizing the lines, before flipping his hands and looking at the back, wiggling his fingers.

She thinks she really did know. It was too like him to put off grading papers until the night before the results were due. But he seemed more enthralled with the fact that he had working opposable thumbs than anything his students had written.

It was the fifth time he'd done it that she finally, tentatively, stepped forward, looking over his shoulder and spying the fact that he had given Kid a 77 solely because of the fact that the boy had an aversion to the number.

It was the only paper she could see with an actual grade on it.

Death, the boy hadn't even written his entire name at the top. Stein couldn't just give him 77 extra credit points solely for the sake of messing with him and the rest of the students. Or, rather, he could. But it probably wasn't the best of ideas.

"Stein?" she called out, looking to the wastebasket where more cans were collected, as well as a few papers she had a sinking feeling were supposed to be graded. When he grunted, she gently brought her hand to the side of his face, dragging his gaze away from where he was enraptured by the fact that he had phalanges. His eyes were bloodshot and she cringed, softly stroking his cheekbone. "Stein, when was the last time you went to sleep?"

She should know, frankly. He slept next to her, most nights. Or, rather, he promised that he'd come to bed as soon as he was done grading papers for the last week. She tried to stay up for him but she had a love for shuteye that she couldn't avoid, and she wanted to trust him to actually go to bed at a decent hour.

Grading papers her ass. Marie had given him the benefit of the doubt since he'd seemed fine up until that day, but she knew him too well to be surprised by the fact that he'd procrastinated on grading the one exam he actually had to report scores to. She knew most of his lesson plans included hazy 80's nature documentaries he found amusing and little else. She at least gave him bonus points since he voiced them over, providing choppy narration. (Her favorite was the shark documentary, in which he referred to them solely as Soul's Relatives.) Still, he could bullshit every other grade he gave his students but this one.

It figured.

He simply stared at her, as though not understanding the question, his expression unchanging, and she found that his eyes had focused on her too closely, seemingly in awe of something. She sighed, softly shaking him. "Stein? When was the last time you slept?"

"Tuesday," he informed her, not blinking. She reared back, slightly.

"Stein, it's Sunday night."

"Tuesday," he repeated, both his palms coming to her face, but hovering as though unwilling to touch her. Marie took a total of four seconds to add up how many cans of Monster he had, as well as the empty coffee tin, and how he seemed to be swaying in his chair, unbalanced even when he was seated.

"You're going to bed," she said, refusing to accept any argument from him. "I'll finish grading."

"It's only four," he commented, still staring at her, unwavering.

Had he blinked when she did? Did she miss it? And, besides which, it was closer to 9 pm, not even close to the 4 he was referencing. She furrowed her brows, turning to look at the computer screen but finding it turned off. Instead, drawn on one of her many sticky notes and tacked to the blank screen was a poorly rendered clock with the hands pointing to 4.

Dear Death, he needed sleep.

"A nap, then," she said, slowly dragging his chair over to the couch, planning on dumping him on the cushions and spending a few extra hours weeding through the work of a class that was not hers. He leaned back precariously as she rolled him away from his desk and she was worried when he wobbled, knowing he was probably all too concussed from falling over so often in that damn death-trap. As she pulled him away, he grabbed hold of the edge of his desk and, by miracle or a laughing fate, the entire thing came with him, scraping over the floor and she stopped when the papers spilled over.

She noted that Maka's had been stapled to a picture of Spirit Marie insisted Stein kept on his table.

Lord, she wouldn't even be surprised at that point if he'd eaten some of the exams. She didn't think he'd even left his station since she walked out that morning, informing him that breakfast was on the stove, since she'd made too much.

If she listened in close enough, she could still hear the water running from when he'd been in it when the sun was still up. He was in the shower at 8 am on the dot when she left and she almost grimaced at how high the water bill would be.

He wasn't going to give in, then, it seemed. Any of his comments would be some strange haze of pop-culture reference and general trolling of his students: not that it was usually different. She sighed, closing her eye and releasing her hold on his chair.

She rolled her gaze to the heavens, knowing Lord Death was in his office, but she wasn't feeling up to getting her compact mirror and asking him for some sort of blessing or a miracle. It was only when she heard the pop of yet another can being opened that she looked back at Stein, staring as he peered into the inside of the container.

The ultimate defeat was when she only stretched over him, grabbing up what she thought was another can. It took a few tries for her to find one that hadn't been previously emptied, but when she did, she merely cracked it open and tipped her head back, chugging the entire thing in, seemingly, one go.

His eyes looked as though they sparked to life, but she only gently bumped him with her hip after she scooped up some papers.

"Scoot over," she said, practically sitting on him as she dragged them closer to the desk, grabbing up a pen and half of the papers.

It was an office seat for one.

But, speaking as a woman who knew she was going to spend most of the night helping her boyfriend who had abandoned his own stack in favor of examining her hair, she didn't really see the point in mentioning that particular fact.

With a precision that had proved deadly on more than one occasion, she chucked her empty can to the wastebasket that had been left where the desk previously was.

When she grabbed the Monster that Stein had opened and barely sipped at, he didn't even make a sound.

"You're getting more of these, I hope you realize," she told him, looking at Tsubaki's exam in front of her. Stein's comment at the top was in German.

It was going to be a long night.


End file.
